For critical, educational use only
Content warning: explicit slurs, hate speech, and descriptions of transphobic rhetoric.

This glossary is a tool to understand, identify, and call out transphobia in all its forms—from institutional language to online hate speech. Many of these terms are used to dehumanise, delegitimise, or intimidate trans people. Understanding them is essential to confronting anti-trans rhetoric effectively.

Institutional & Coded Language

“Biological male/female”
  • Used to imply: That trans people are inherently and permanently their sex assigned at birth.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It reduces a person’s gender to physical characteristics and disregards trans people’s identities, and is scientifically inaccurate. It’s often used to delegitimise trans women and trans men.
“Born a man/woman” / “Man in a dress” / “Used to be a…”
  • Used to imply: That trans people are pretending or are deceptive.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It misgenders people and promotes the false idea that transition is artificial or dishonest.
“Trans-identified male/female” (TIM/TIF)
  • Used by: Far-right and gender-critical circles.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It refuses to recognise someone’s actual gender and reframes their identity as a delusion or belief, often alongside dehumanising language.
“Autogynephilia”
  • Origin: A debunked theory by Ray Blanchard.
  • Used to imply: That trans women transition due to a sexual fetish.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It pathologises and sexualises trans identities, especially trans women, and has no scientific legitimacy.
“Gender ideology”
  • Used to imply: That trans rights are part of a dangerous political agenda.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It frames the existence of trans people as a belief system or cult, not as real people with rights.
“Sex-based rights”
  • Used by: Anti-trans campaigners and some feminist groups.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It’s often a euphemism for excluding trans people—especially trans women—from legal protections, spaces, and recognition under the guise of protecting women.
“Protecting single-sex spaces”
  • Used to imply: That trans women are threats in women’s spaces.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It weaponises fear and stokes moral panic to justify the exclusion of trans people, despite a lack of evidence of any threat.
“Woke agenda” / “Trans lobby” / “Transactivists”
  • Used to imply: That there’s a coordinated political conspiracy behind trans advocacy.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It fuels paranoia and paints marginalised people as a powerful, sinister force, reminiscent of other historical scapegoating.
“Rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD)
  • Used to imply: That being trans is a social contagion or peer-pressure trend.
  • Why it’s transphobic: The theory is unsupported by evidence and used to deny the legitimacy of trans youth’s identities and healthcare needs.
“De-transitioners” (when used as a political talking point)
  • Used to imply: That transitioning is harmful or regretful.
  • Why it’s transphobic: Although some people detransition, they are a small minority, and most do so due to social pressure, not regret. The term is weaponised to undermine trans healthcare.
“Child mutilation” / “Chemical castration”
  • Used to imply: That gender-affirming care for minors is abusive.
  • Why it’s transphobic: These phrases are inflammatory and inaccurate. They demonise life-saving healthcare and vilify both trans people and medical professionals.
“Male-bodied” / “Female-bodied”
  • Used to imply: That biology overrides identity.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It misgenders people and erases the reality that gender-affirming care often alters secondary sex characteristics.
“LGB without the T” / “Gender critical”
  • Used to imply: That trans people are harmful to the LGB community or feminism.
  • Why it’s transphobic: These labels often signal exclusionary beliefs, particularly denying trans women’s womanhood and trans men’s erasure.
“You can’t change sex”
  • Used to imply: That trans identities are invalid or delusional.
  • Why it’s transphobic: It disregards social, legal, and medical aspects of transition and the lived realities of trans people.
“I identify as an attack helicopter” / “Trans-trenders”
  • Used to imply: That trans identities are absurd or attention-seeking.
  • Why it’s transphobic: These mock trans people, especially non-binary individuals, and equate their identities with jokes or trends.
“Transgenderism”
  • Used to imply: An outdated term used to make trans people sound like a political movement or condition.
  • Why it’s transphobic: Frames being transgender as a medical condition that needs to be cured. In relation to a political movement, frames being trans as something driven by political agendas.

Explicit Slurs & Dehumanising Language

Use these only for the purpose of recognising and confronting hate. These terms are inherently harmful and should never be used casually or reclaimed without careful context.

“Tranny”
  • What it is: A slur historically used to degrade and mock trans women.
  • Why it’s harmful: Dehumanising, pornified, and frequently associated with violence, harassment, and fetishisation. Often used in hate crimes and abusive media.
“Troon”
  • What it is: An internet-born slur, especially on 4chan and Kiwi Farms, used to mock trans people (especially trans women).
  • Why it’s harmful: It’s designed to strip trans people of dignity and identity, often paired with grotesque caricatures and memes portraying trans women as mentally ill or predatory.
“Shemale”
  • What it is: A pornographic slur used primarily to objectify trans women.
  • Why it’s harmful: Reinforces the fetishisation of trans women and is never appropriate outside of critical analysis of porn culture or media representation.
“Trap”
  • What it is: Often used in anime/gaming spaces to refer to a “boy who looks like a girl”—but also misused to describe trans women as deceptive.
  • Why it’s harmful: Suggests that trans people exist to trick others, reinforcing the harmful and violent “deception” narrative.
“Ladyboy”
  • What it is: A racialised and transphobic term often used to describe Southeast Asian trans women.
  • Why it’s harmful: Exoticises, objectifies, and demeans; commonly used by sex tourists and fetishists.
“It” / “He-She” / “Thing”
  • What it is: Dehumanising language intended to erase a person’s humanity and gender.
  • Why it’s harmful: Strips away personhood; historically used to justify violence and social exclusion.
“Chaser” (context-specific)
  • What it is: While sometimes used within the community to refer to fetishistic behaviour, it can be used in transphobic ways by outsiders to mock trans attraction or accuse trans women of being deceptive.
  • Why it’s tricky: Its meaning shifts depending on context, but in transphobic spaces, it’s used to reinforce the idea that attraction to trans people is deviant.

Dog Whistles & Memes

“Protect the children” / “Won’t somebody think of the children?”

Weaponised to oppose trans healthcare, education, and visibility, often portraying trans adults as predatory.

“Transing kids” / “Transing the gay away”

A new wave of anti-trans propaganda that accuses parents and doctors of pushing gender transitions on children, particularly to erase gay identities. There is no evidence for this narrative.

“Clownfish” / “Clownface” / “Wearing woman face” / “AGPs” / “Neovag”

Slang used in hate forums to ridicule trans women’s anatomy or transition status. Dehumanising and explicitly hateful.

“100% woman” / “Real woman” / “Female biology”

Ostensibly neutral, these phrases are often used in exclusionary contexts to subtly invalidate trans women.

Why this matters:

Understanding these terms helps people:

  • Spot transphobic narratives even when disguised in polite or clinical language.
  • Challenge hate speech effectively by recognising both overt and covert forms.
  • Protect community spaces from infiltration by harmful ideologies.
  • Support trans people by advocating against normalised or institutionalised transphobia.